Through God's Eyes

For at least a couple of decades, among many other things, I have prayed for God to teach me to love through His eyes.  What I mean by this is that I desire to see people the way He sees them.  Not that I want know their secrets, but that I want to see the good that may not be obvious on the surface.  I simply want to have God's mindset instead of my own, and His mindset is so very different than the way our minds naturally think and reason.  I'm a work in progress.

This morning, again in John, I was reading the account of Jesus having gone to the temple and overturned the money changers table. (John 2:12-25)  When I read the last couple of verses I had my ah ha moment for today:

          John 2:23-25 (Amp) "23 But when He was in Jerusalem during the Passover Feast, many
           believed in  His name [identified themselves with His party] after seeing His signs (wonders,
           miracles) which He was doing.  24  But Jesus [for His part] did not trust Himself to them,
           because He knew all [men]; 25  And He did not need anyone to bear witness concerning
           man [needed no evidence from anyone about men], for He Himself knew what was in
           human nature. [He could read men's hearts.]"

So, if I understand this correctly, during this trip to Jerusalem there were numerous people who saw the things that Jesus did and believed that He was truly the Messiah.  We know from earlier in John 2 that He had turned the water into wine, and He must have done some others things as well that were just not recorded.  Nevertheless, these people saw and believed, but Jesus knew what was in their hearts and it is recorded that He did not trust them.  So, He did not stay around to invest time in them.

In whom did He invest time?  Who did he trust?  Let's see...we'll there was Matthew.  He was a tax collector, a liar, a cheat, a consorter with all manor of what we would call low life.  Peter was a hothead who cut off a guy's ear and completely denied Christ 3 times.  Andrew was Peter's baby brother. He was sort of a shy, thinker type with apparently no leadership skills, but he was a good guy.  Then there were the Sons of Thunder, James and John, aptly given this name because they were a bit over the top.  They were ready to torch a village by calling down fire from heaven when some people in the village rejected Jesus.  They also had a "stage Mom" who kept lobbying Jesus for her babies to have the best seats in Heaven when all was said and done. Additionally, John obviously had a problem with pride.  He openly called himself, "the disciple whom Jesus loved," and only referred to the other disciples by their given names.  Phillip was an all around good guy.  He jumped right into following Jesus by telling his friend Nathaniel about the Messiah. Nathaniel, who later became Bartholomew, needed a minute to get rid of his skepticism.  He was also a good guy, but was a bit prejudiced about Jesus' hometown. Thomas doubted everything.  (Maybe he was from Missouri?) Even though he eventually did believe, Jesus had to go out of his way to prove who He was to Thomas.  Then there were three guys who did not really distinguish themselves: The other James, Thaddeus, and Simon the Zealot.  We do not know much about them, but in order to fit into this group they probably had some sort of quirks.  Last but not least is Judas Iscariot.  We all know that he betrayed Jesus with a kiss for the price of 30 pieces of silver.  He was the group's treasurer and stole from the treasury.  This was a deceitful, completely untrustworthy scoundrel, and Jesus knew his heart from the beginning.

This group seems like an overall mess, yet these were the guys in whom He invested His time.  Guys with which He trusted the keys to the Kingdom.  Except for a couple of the innocuous personalities we would never peg these guys as the ones that Jesus would choose and deem trustworthy.  However, with all of their flaws and foibles, both past and present, He recognized 11 hearts that were ready to be sold out for Jesus.  Jesus saw past their appearance, circumstance, personality, and habits.  He saw the core of their hearts and knew that these were mighty men who, with some training, would set the world on fire for Christ.

  I don't know why the people in Jerusalem were not trustworthy, and I don't know why, except for fulfillment of prophecy, that Jesus chose Judas.  I do, however, know that I want to be able to see beyond people's quirks and flaws.    I want to be able to look past a person's ways and see his/her heart.  I want to be able to love like Jesus loves you and me.  I want to be able to love, and to be loved by others, through God's eyes.

It is well!